The Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, located at an altitude of 2168 m in the Sierra de los Filabres (Almería), is the largest astronomical observatory in continental Europe and the second largest in the northern hemisphere, after the Roque de los Muchachos observatory.
The observatory is an infrastructure of the Hispanic Astronomical Centre of Andalusia (CAHA), operated by the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Astrophysics Institute of Andalusia of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
The observatory features a variety of equipment, such as:
- 3 telescopes with apertures of 1.23, 2.2 and 3.5 m, respectively,
- gamma-ray detector, and
- a meteor tracking system that patrols the entire visible sky from the observatory.
The CAHA also houses telescopes from other organisations:
- a 1.5 m aperture telescope from the National Astronomical Observatory,
- a Schmidt camera from the Hamburg Observatory (Germany),
- a 60 cm robotic telescope from the INTA-CSIC Astrobiology Centre.
